


Nothing Better To Do

by Triss_Hawkeye



Category: Psychonauts
Genre: (literally), Banter, F/M, Flirting, Headspace, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 14:46:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17061749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triss_Hawkeye/pseuds/Triss_Hawkeye
Summary: Each other's minds are familiar territory.





	Nothing Better To Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kay_obsessive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_obsessive/gifts).



“I don’t know how you stand it,” Sasha said, leaning over to mutter in Milla’s ear. “All those children running around in your mind, all at once. One at a time is bad enough.”

Milla leaned in and chuckled. “Oh Sasha, darling, why so uptight?”

He felt a mental tug catch him off balance and the next thing he knew he was engulfed in an all-too-familiar riot of noise and colour.

“Ugh, awful,” he complained. “You know I hate it when you do that.”

Agent Vodello’s mental projection of herself laughed and flapped her hand at his own. “Relax, darling. Besides,” she leaned in, voice teasing, and draped her arms over his shoulders, “you know I would not have been able to do it if you were not completely off your guard next to me.”

Sasha scowled at her. “That is because I trust you. A trust I assure you that you shall lose if you keep abusing it like this.”

Milla just smiled at the blatant lie and sashayed over to a balcony overlooking the partyscape. “To answer your question, Agent Nein, I rather like having children dancing around in here. After all, what’s a party without guests, right? Real guests, not just figments of my imagination. And children are very flexible. Good for bouncing ideas off. Unlike some other people I know.”

The sly jab was amicably ignored as Sasha cupped his chin and walked over to join her. “So you use the children’s presence to complement your own thought process,” he mused. “How very pragmatic of you.”

The other agent simply made the motion of innocently inspecting her nails, the effect only slightly lessened by the white gloves she wore. “No harm in getting the most out of a situation, darling, even a pleasant one!” 

“For a given value of pleasant,” Sasha muttered to himself, leaning against the rail. As if it had heard him, it gave way beneath his weight, folding under the balcony and launching him into open space. There was a split second of beams of light and music and glitter and no way of knowing which way was up, but even as he gathered his mental resources into resisting the ever-present tug of gravity that no human mindscape could entirely shake, he felt a telekinetic grip tighten onto the collar of his turtleneck.

“I am perfectly capable of handling myself!” he protested at Milla, who floated herself and him with her back onto the balcony with enough grace as to appear effortless.

“Oh, but I am by far the best of us at levitation, so what’s the point?” she laughed. “Anyway, I hope you’ve learned not to offend the scenery. It’s on my side, you know.”

“A tactical error on my part,” Sasha replied, deadpan. “In choosing the wrong battleground.”

He looped an arm around her waist, enjoying how she leaned in without reservation, and stepped _down_ and _around_ and with barely a hitch they had turned a vertical right angle—music, lights, colour all vanished in less than an eye-blink and they were left standing together on a far more comfortable, black and white geometric surface. Somewhere in the background was the record-player sound of a singular violin, relaxing and unobtrusive. Sasha gave a pleased sigh and inserted his hands into his jacket pockets.

“Much better,” he declared. He gave barely a passing thought to the smoothness of the transition from one mind to another, betraying a closeness between the two uncommon even for Psychonaut partners. They didn’t even trigger each other’s censors. It was a connection whose strength he knew he could count on, yet even now it felt tenuous somehow, as if thinking about it too hard would cause it to turn flighty and vanish. A contradiction, one he sealed up and put away for later analysis swiftly and smoothly enough that even Milla didn’t notice as she surveyed the new surroundings with mild disappointment.

“Oh Sasha, Sasha,” she chided. “Why can’t your laboratory be as tidy as your mind is?”

Sasha adjusted his glasses irritably. “I have a system!” he protested. “Anyway, physical order is hardly required when one has mental order.”

“Well, all this mental order is no fun if you won’t let me see any of it,” Milla said, sitting down and hovering cross-legged over the surface, patting the air next to her. Sasha sighed and carefully lowered himself next to her, demonstrating that he was absolutely fine at levitating when given a moment to concentrate. He very nearly dropped himself onto the floor regardless as Milla slipped her arm around his, but he quelled an exasperated huff and instead focussed on retrieving something from his mind. 

From a depression in the surface of the cube emerged a Tiffany lamp. “Ugh, not that,” he said, blasting it away with a bolt of irritation while Milla exclaimed, “Oh, how charming!” He tried again, attempting to focus on something other than the woman attached to his side. This time, a filing cabinet rose from the floor, coloured garish orange and pink in contrast with its monochrome surroundings.

“NO,” he insisted, banishing it back into his subconscious.

“Oh, but it had my name on it!” Milla with a mock pout, but gracefully didn’t push the awkward subject. “Maybe some other time, hm?” There could be nothing entirely secret between two with such a close psychic connection, but that made respect of one another’s boundaries all the more an important practice for them both. Nothing lay so much unknown between them as unspoken. 

Feeling a bloom of heat on the tops of his cheeks, Sasha took a calming breath and focussed once more. A simulacrum of his laboratory emerged. Two fuzzy and undefined figures, one tall and one short, resolved themselves into a memory, their colour slightly desaturated and edges blurred from the imperfection of recall.

“Hey, Agent Nein!” said Razputin, his voice in memory a little less like his own and a little more like Sasha’s had sounded in his head when he was a child. “Do you have any other experiments down here I can help with? Like a psychic death ray? Or, or _mind lasers!_ ”

The ten-year-old started jumping around in circles, making pew-pew noises while memory-Sasha rubbed his temples.

“Oh Razputin,” he grumbled. “I have created a trigger-happy monster.”

Razputin stopped spinning and stood up straight. “It doesn’t have to be shooting things!” he protested, in an effort to look respectable. “It can be… some sort of brain… science… thing… with _lasers!_ ”

Sasha gave a fond laugh despite himself. “My primary research out here is the Brain Tumbler, and you’re already helping with that. But maybe one day when you’re older you’ll be able to visit my lab at Psychonauts HQ.”

“Oh Agent Nein, _can I?!_ ” Razputin looked like he was about to burst into another round of excited jumping about.

“But in the meantime,” Sasha continued firmly, “you should run along and practice your levitation, cadet. Agent Vodello knows when you’ve been slacking.”

The memory faded out at that point, and Milla gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Oh I do, don’t I?” she teased. “He’s a good boy. I’m not surprised you’re fond of him.”

“You’re fond of him too,” Sasha said defensively, looking away. Milla just laughed and tugged him backwards. There was a moment of losing balance—in his own mind, no less, how humiliating—and then they were seated again, this time on a curvy red sofa in a dim room, the sound of pounding dance music once again echoing somewhere nearby. Sasha stood up and looked around the small space in dismay. He knew what it meant to be somewhere hidden away from the music and lights in Milla’s mind.

“Camilla, we don’t have to be here,” he murmured. 

“Hush, hush, it’s not where you think,” she replied with a subdued but comforting smile. “This is new. It’s for you! Somewhere we can both be comfortable.”

Sasha looked around the room. It was true—he could still hear music, but it was muffled enough to fall into the background, like a heartbeat. He could hear himself think. The colours were a little more muted—very nearly _tasteful_ —and the furnishings simple and comfortable, though still with Milla’s characteristic sixties vibe. He performed a slow rotation on the spot, looking around the room.

“How considerate of you,” he said finally, feeling touched. Milla joined him and draped her arms back over his shoulders. 

“I thought it would be a nice place for us to spend some time together,” she told him, her voice low and suggestive as she leaned in towards him.

Despite the pleasant situation he found himself in, Sasha found himself hesitating. Milla raised an eyebrow.

“Unless you have something better to do?”

“Hm.” For a moment, Sasha released himself back to his conscious awareness. He and Milla were sat side by side, leaning in towards each other almost imperceptibly. Morceau Oleander was sat across from them, war-storying. Judging by the content, he was about halfway through an unlikely tale they were already deeply familiar with. He paused for a moment, his eyes narrowing at Sasha.

“Hey, you are listening, aren’t you Agent Nein?” he said accusingly.

“Oh yes, Morry, we are listening,” Sasha replied. Beside him, Milla gave an encouraging if slightly vacant nod. 

Satisfied, Oleander continued, and Sasha dropped back into the pleasing state of having Milla’s arms around his neck. 

“No,” he said decisively. “Nothing better to do.”

Milla’s smile widened as she pulled him back towards the sofa.

**Author's Note:**

> I was so pleased to see Psychonauts nominated that I went and replayed it—just in time for the Psychonauts 2 trailer, as it turned out! Thank you for reminding me of it at a serendipitously good moment. Happy Yuletide, hope you enjoyed yourself!


End file.
